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Me at Nieman Lab: Hacking Consensus

For the past few years I’ve bent quite a few ears about how much better arguments could be online. The earliest of these ear-bendings (that I can remember) was in Q1 of 2008. Since then I’ve talked to policy wonks, developers, journalists and plenty of friends and family about how I think the basic op-ed model should be improved. Four years since that first conversation, I finally have an essay on the topic that I feel comfortable standing behind.

My piece is up at Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab and I hope you’ll give it a read. I’d appreciate any feedback you have. Here’s the intro:

In a recent New York Times column, Paul Krugman argued that we should impose a tax on financial transactions, citing the need to reduce budget deficits, the dubious value of much financial trading, and the literature on economic growth. So should we? Assuming for a moment that you’re not deeply versed in financial economics, on what basis can you evaluate this argument? You can ask yourself whether you trust Krugman. Perhaps you can call to mind other articles you’ve seen that mentioned the need to cut the deficit or questioned the value of Wall Street trading. But without independent knowledge — and with no external links — evaluating the strength of Krugman’s argument is quite difficult.

It doesn’t have to be. The Internet makes it possible for readers to research what they read more easily than ever before, provided they have both the time and the ability to filter reliable sources from unreliable ones. But why not make it even easier for them? By re-imagining the way arguments are presented, journalism can provide content that is dramatically more useful than the standard op-ed, or even than the various “debate” formats employed at places like the Times or The Economist.

To do so, publishers should experiment in three directions: acknowledging the structure of the argument in the presentation of the content; aggregating evidence for and against each claim; and providing a credible assessment of each claim’s reliability. If all this sounds elaborate, bear in mind that each of these steps is already being taken by a variety of entrepreneurial organizations and individuals.